STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Friday, 31 May 2013

[Demeter]

16. The Average CEO Made $9.7 Million in 2012

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/16655-the-average-ceo-made-97-million-in-2012


...In 2011, the average CEO salary was $9.6 million, an all-time high, but now it turns out that CEO salaries in 2012 averaged a whopping $9.7 million, for the head of a typical large public company. Overall, health care and media CEOs picked up the highest pay, while utility CEOs enjoyed a meager $7.5 million.

Why do CEOs earn so much? Companies say they need to attract the best talent, and huge salaries are the way to do it. Whatever their justification, the shocking fact is that the average CEO in 2012 earned 354 times more than the average worker.

This was not always true. Income inequality has greatly increased over the past 30 years: in 1980 the average CEO made 50 times more money than the average worker while today the average CEO makes over 300 times more than the average worker.

Thanks to deregulation in the 1980s the top one percent of Americans have seen skyrocketing salaries, while worker pay has stagnated.

WHAT REGULATION WAS THAT?


...What’s more disturbing is that the United States currently has more income inequality than Pakistan or the Ivory Coast, according to a study by ThinkProgress using data from the CIA factbook. Income inequality in the United States is actually higher than at any other time in modern history since the Great Depression. While the average CEO makes that $9.7 million, nearly 50 million Americans, more than 16 percent of the population, are barely surviving. Figures released by the Census Bureau in 2012 found an increase in poverty numbers, going from 49 million in 2010 to 49.7 million in 2011. One of the most depressing and shameful findings is that almost 20 percent of American children continue to live in poverty...